


A Gesture of Defiance

by Lizardbeth



Series: Determined Spirits [2]
Category: Castle, V (2009)
Genre: Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe, Community: fandom_stocking, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardbeth/pseuds/Lizardbeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beckett and Castle can't fight crime, but they can defy the new alien overlords.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gesture of Defiance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/gifts).



> Happy New Year!

* * *

Kate made herself not glare hatefully at the Visitor "advisor" at the reception desk as she passed. He smiled at her, with the flat eyes and insincere smile of a shark, and for a second she wanted to claw that mask right off his face. She didn't because she remembered Tom saying that Anna would nuke the place if they were exposed, and because panic was nobody's friend, but he made her skin crawl.

"You have a case, Detective?" he asked. 

"They called a body," she answered. "Probably an accident, but... we want to be sure."

"Of course. Lucky the homicide rate's gone down." 

"It sure is," she flashed a smile at him that disappeared as soon as she was on the pavement. Sure, there were fewer homicides. Fewer cops in general. Lots more missing persons. Lots more misfiled and missing paperwork, too.

Two blocks away, she met Castle on the sidewalk. "So, what do we have?" 

"Murder," she answered. "I want to get a look before they scrub it." 

"Our friends?" he asked, and glanced at the big ship hovering above them. She remembered his once boyish glee at the thought of extra-terrestrials, replaced by a grimmer seriousness. They'd all had to get a little harder and more careful under this gentle occupation force. Esposito and Ryan had been transferred, the captain was new, and Lanie had vanished. Castle had persuaded his mother to take Alexis out of the city - Martha hadn't taken much persuading, being deeply suspicious of the aliens - but had refused to leave himself, too interested and too aware of the reality to not fight it in his own way.

Kate shrugged - it was Visitor related, that much seemed clear. "They want to cover it up, which means we want to look, right?"

At the site her badge was enough to get her past the cordon, Castle in her wake, and luckily no one in V uniform was around. Which didn't mean their spies weren't, but it wasn't that important to them, at least. Probably meant the victim was human, or it would likely already be gone.

The body was still crumpled on the sidewalk. He was a man, mid-thirties, fully dressed, and given his injuries and the blood, fully human.

"He fell off the building, Detective," the coroner's assistant told her. "Jumped maybe." 

"Or was pushed," Castle murmured, pressing close to look at the body. 

The coroner's assistant gave him a tolerant look and said, "When you're done I need to get it ready for transport." 

Kate knelt and slipped on a glove to pat the body for id: she found the wallet, opening it for the license and some credit cards, and two hundred in cash. She also found a phone in her pat-down and palmed it, acting disappointed. "All yours. Let me know if you find anything." 

Meanwhile, Castle had been looking up at the surrounding buildings and told her as she moved away, "So he goes to the top of the shortest building around to jump to his death?"

"He doesn't live here, at least not according to his ID. Address is the Bronx."

Castle frowned. "So he comes all the way here to find a four-story building to jump off?"

She nodded. "Unlikely." There was also no obvious tie to the V, to explain their interest. That meant there was more. "Let's look around." 

They started to circle the surrounding blocks. Two blocks away on a sidestreet, a big brick wall was being painted over from recent graffiti. 

But the thing that caught Kate's attention, were the large, red letters being removed: -- MAY LIVES 

She seized Castle's sleeve as she stopped. "Look," she hissed.

Together they stood on the corner across the street, and watched the shopkeeper paint over it hastily, as if he'd been threatened or paid to do it right away. 

"Viva la revolucion," Castle murmured before they turned away. In the park he bought them both ice cream and they sat on the wooden bench at the pond. "So. They caught him painting terrorist propaganda or whatever they're calling it this week and killed him."

"And not a damn thing I can do about it." She glared at the pond and the reflected image of the ship above. 

"Have you heard from our friend?" Castle asked. 

She shook her head. "He still updates the blog though. So he's out there." Kate smiled a little. She'd called in a few favors to find out how to mask her IP address to read the blog without being traced. But it was her only connection to Tom - to John, she should say. Who was very much alive, and now the human Resistance had found out about his name, too. 

She took out her keys and in the space between her and Castle on the bench, she keyed into the paint - JOHN MAY LIVES.

Castle looked down and pretended to be scandalized, "Beckett? Are you defacing public property?"

Her eyes met his and she smiled. "Damn straight." 

"Let's go do a few more," he suggested eagerly. 

She took photos with the victim's phone camera. Then she uploaded them to Tumblr with the tag of John May Lives and emailed them to as many television and newspaper addresses she could find.

And then she hurled the phone into the pond. It was a small gesture of defiance, maybe ultimately useless, but if this man had died to spray paint the words, the least she could do was try to spread them. She couldn't bring his killers to justice, but she could do her part to resist.


End file.
